“I’ll have my guy look into it.”
Jake’s head spun as he continued to drive. He’d just stood there and watched as she walked out his door with Mac three days ago...alone.
His ears filled with the sound of his blood rushing through them. The phone calls, the fucking snake...he slammed the palm of his free hand against his steering wheel.
“Goddammit!” How had he not seen it?
Jake wanted to pull over to the side of the road and throw up, but he couldn’t waste a single minute getting to Liv.
To Ryker, he barked, “We’ll keep trying to get ahold of her. You hear anything new, I don’t care how fucking small it is, you call me. Immediately.”
“I will. And I’m sorry, Jake. I’d have called sooner had I known.”
Without another word, Jake ended the call and immediately tried Olivia again. He didn’t need Ryker’s damn apology. He needed to know his woman was okay.
She didn’t answer his call. He tried again and again, but always got the same result. The sick feeling that had started in his gut the second Coop entered his barn worsened with every second he didn’t hear her voice.
Not giving up hope, he started to dial the hospital, but Coop’s hand on his arm stopped him.
“Already called the hospital, boss. She’s not there. She, uh...she never showed for her shift.”
Oh, God. Was he too late? Jake hit number two on his call list. Trevor answered immediately.
“Tell me you’re there.”
“Ten minutes out. You?”
Fuck. “I’m half an hour behind you.”
Jake looked at his speedometer and pushed down his accelerator. The distance he still had to cover should have normally taken him another forty-five minutes at least, but Jake had been breaking land speed records since his tires hit the highway.
“I was there less than twenty minutes ago, Jake. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“The hospital said she didn’t show for her shift, Trev.”
Trevor waited a beat and then said, “Doesn’t necessarily mean anything. She was pretty emotional when I left. Maybe she’s taking some time to pull herself together.
Jake wanted to believe that. “Call the second you get to her place.”
“Roger that.”
Jake ended the call, and for what felt like the millionth time in the last ten minutes, he tried calling Liv again.
Chapter 13
Olivia woke from the vehicle’s jostling motion. Her head and jaw were throbbing, and a sharp pain shot through her right wrist and up the length of her arm, any time she tried to move.
The cut on the inside of her left arm was still bleeding, but seemed to have tapered off some. Olivia knew she’d already lost a lot of blood, because the entire right side of her scrub top was soaked through, sticking to her skin beneath it.
Looking around slowly, she realized she was in the back of some sort of SUV. She tried to move again, but her hands were tied together in front of her with thick, coarse rope, increasing the pain in her wrist.
She started to panic. Wanted to scream for someone to help her. More than anything, she wanted Jake.
Images from her last day at his cabin began moving rapidly through her mind. It was like was watching them through one of those toys she’d had as a kid. The ones with the pictures on the slides. With each click, she replayed the scenes.
She was standing with Mikey and Jake in Jake’s living room. Click. Talking with her brother in Jake’s bedroom. Click. Jake standing at his door, begging her not to go as tears ran down his face. Click.
Feeling lost and betrayed as she walked out that door. Click, click, click.
Jake wouldn’t be coming this time. There’d be no rescue, because she’d told him to stay away. Olivia could still see the devastating look on his face when she’d told him goodbye.
Tears filled her eyes, but only a few fell before she forced the rest away. Crying wasn’t going to help. She had no way to call anyone, so if she was going to make it out of this alive, she’d have to depend on herself to do it.
Glancing over her shoulder, she looked at the top of the seat she was laying behind. No one was sitting there, and it was tall enough to conceal any small movement she made.
She listened, hearing Cetro’s voice along with another man’s. Great. He brought a friend.
Olivia couldn’t understand what they were saying, because they spoke low, and in Spanish. As she continued to listen, Olivia became confident that they were the only two men with her in the vehicle.
Becoming more brave with her movements, she ignored the pain and began looking around as best she could for something, anything that could be used as a weapon to defend herself.
Of course, it couldn’t be like the action movies she’d seen. or the mystery books she’d read, where the damsel in distress always found a tire iron or a screwdriver conveniently lying around. There was nothing Liv could see that would help her.
Her body rolled slightly as the SUV turned onto what sounded like a gravel road, and she had to bite back a moan. Not long after, they turned again, driving a short distance before stopping.
Olivia’s heart rate was through the roof, and she had to force herself to take in deep, even breaths. Panicking right now would only ensure her death.
And she didn’t want to die. There was too much left to do. So much she needed to say. Not now, Bradshaw.
Her problems with Jake would have to wait. Olivia needed to figure out what she could do to fight off two
